Fasting day 12 Oct 22 2008-184.5 lbs.

So we have company coming for Friday night and therefore Friday and Saturday will be eat days. So....I am thinking to fast today AND tomorrow so that I can be in synch. We'll see about that but I will definitely fast today.

In anticipation of a two day fast I ate big time yesterday. Pancakes, eggs, bacon (turkey kind) for breakfast, two slices of pizza for lunch, a few chunks of grilled chicken after work, and a steak and baked potato and salad for dinner. Had a bunch of bowls of Kashi puffed grain cereal with rice milk as a late night snack. So I think I have eaten enough for a two day fast. Its funny that I now eat lots of meat and dairy but still retain an affinity for "vegetarian" foods such as rice milk and Kashi cereal. These were foods that I ate on the McDougall plan. I still like them but I really crave MEAT now.

Part of the difficulty of fasting is fear of future hunger but not the actual experience of hunger. For example, when you are fasting you think "I am getting a little hungry and its lunch time. How can I possibly make it for the entire day? I will just be even hungrier later. It will be impossible to fast all day, I should just eat now." Fear of future hunger is what drives us to overeat, I believe, at least sometimes. Perhaps this was an evolutionary mechanism to get as many calories and nutrients as possible when food is available, in anticipation of food being scarce. Once you conquer this fear, fasting is easy. You learn that you don't keep getting hungrier and hungrier as the day goes on and that hunger is manageable. Hunger comes and goes.